The sun. [volume] (Morris, Stevens County, Minn.) 1882-1895, 1887-06-02
The Mummy Craze.


the people of this country engage in.
are SO changeable, that it is all one can
do to keep up with them. But the lat
est craze is the most ridiculous of all.
The latest thing is the mummy" 1t
has been coming for several years.
First came mummy CLOTH" and every
body had some article made of it. Then
the papers were filled with accounts of
excavations in Egypt. and the finding
of mummies, and now the greatest in
terest is manifested in mummies, and
large numbers are being shipped to this
country. The finding of the mummy of
KingPharaoh settled the whole business,
and people who, n few years ago, could
not have been hired to think of num-
my, now go wild over photographs of
the mummy of Pharaoh, the magazines
are publishing illustrations of the exca-
vations, with pictures of the dead
of twenty centuries ago, and the people
are becoming crazy as bed bugs over
mummies. 1t is said that Milwaukee
young man travelling in Egypt is to
send an invoice of mummies to muse
UNI here. If the time ever comes
when the Egyptian mummy becomes
an article of bric-a-brac in the
homes of civilized people, the under
signed wants to be confined in nun
merry. There is nothing about num-
my that is beautiful, or that
can serve any good purpose. We
never came so near taking our oldest
son across our knee, as when he dug
up the skull of an Indian, up on Lake
Winnebago, couple of years ago. and
brought it home as bric-a-b rac, and on
ly Tor the fact that the aforesaid son
had got so large, that it become Gus
tomary to cut his old pants down for
us to wear, and the additional fact is
that he had become such an athlete
that he could wipe the floor with us, he
would have been chastsed on the spot.
chastised on. For two years that GUS
sed grinning skull of an alleged Indian,
has pointed its sightless eye-holes at us.
on all occasions. and driven away
thoughts that might have been worth
their weight in gold, and caused us to
wonder if anybody would ever dig up the
skull we are now SO careful to preserve
the hair on, and make jack-lantern of
our head in some printing office of the
future, while sacrilegious kids would
put the stem of a clay pipe between the
teeth, as is often done with the Indian
bric-a-brac that ornaments this office.
And the next thing we shall
have to contend with will
be mummy. Every house will
have to have mummy, OF be out of
style. And what in the name of high
heaven ever set an intell gent people
to get mashed on disgusting mummy,
when the woods are full of live men
and women, who can breathe, and look
out of their eyes. and smile back, is
more than we can imagine. The best
looking mummy that ever was kiln
dried, is a caricature on humanity.
the sight of which should cause cold
chlas to run up live persons back.
The mummy looks Us you can imagine
a chinaman would look, killed and dried
in bake oven, covered with tar and
feathers, and leaned up against Tense.
A mummy is a corpse that has been
painted with some sort of asphalt roof
ing paint, and rolled up in sheets for a
few thousand years, until it becomes
petrified. The nose is usually knock
eel Off in digging it out of its grave, the
place where the eyes were, resemble
blue pills, the ears are eaten by moths,
and the lips look as though ravaged by
cancer. The face is black as an
African, the teeth yellow, and the
whole thing looks like an ancient
statue made of a poor grade of choco-
; late. nibbled by rats. 1t must smell
IRONY. Even king that has lain in
grave for couple of thousand
years, must have an ancient and fish
like smell concealed about his person.
And these are the things that are to be
stood in our parlors and halls, for a
man to come home to from the lodge,
and try to hang his hat on. There is
nothing about Il mummy to be afraid of.
1t is not like ghost. You know to a
| dead certainty that it is deceased, and
cannot harm you, but it would not
cause man to be hilarious to come
home at midnight, little too full for
utterance, and try to hang his hat on a
my fall on him. and roll over with him
ON the floor. Imagine a man so full he
would apologize to mummy, for
words spoken in the heat of debate,
while trying to open the front door
with a jack-knife. 1t is possible that a
mummy in ones front hall, IN ght have
an influence on q man to such an extent
that he would not feel like going home
drunk, knowing he would have to face
that gr.nning mummy. On the con-
trary, Il mummy in the house might be
an incentive to man to get drunk.
However it turns out, there is no use
for mummies in this free country, and
such craze as is about to take possess
sion of the people is piece of foolish
ness. Condam mummy, anyway
Peck's San.
|